Advance parties had been sent ahead of the Division, and now other parties of officers, N.C.O.s and men were attached for short periods to battalions and units of the 1st Division in the front line trenches that they might see and understand the conditions of warfare on the Western Front, before the Division should be called upon to take its place in the line that stretched from the Belgian coast to Switzerland. The enemy’s retirement from the Somme and the Ancre to the Hindenburg Line had upset the plans of the Allies for a spring offensive. The recently-vacated German trenches were visited, and the scenes of appalling devastation, the shattered remains of what had once been flourishing villages and farmsteads, gave the troops their first impressions of France’s martyrdom, and filled them with indignation and loathing. They had heard and read of the ruin and desolation in Belgium and Northern France, but the half had not been told. The wanton destruction of fruit-trees and the desecration of cemeteries were acts dictated not by military necessity but by beastliness of mind.
Throughout this preparatory period the troops were kept busily employed upon the badly damaged roads, and—as occasional opportunity offered—in the attempt to make the entente still more cordiale. Feuillieres, Biaches, Herbecourt, Flaucourt, Dompierre, and Peronne were visited by various units, and the sappers constructed bridges to take heavy guns and lorry traffic over the Somme at Brie and elsewhere. Not only had the enemy blown craters at most of the cross-roads, but, east of Peronne, he had felled the trees that line the main French roads, and these had to be removed. This work of clearing up after the German retreat was of great importance, and the Division gained an insight into conditions on the Western Front as the troops approached the line. Where possible the ruins of farms and houses, swarming with rats, were used as billets, but the road-makers usually slept in cellars, dugouts, and holes. The wretched weather continued and there was heavy snow in April. The horses, so long accustomed to an eastern climate, suffered greatly and began to deteriorate, some succumbing to pneumonia. The boots which had been issued just before leaving Egypt were quite unsuited to a bad winter in Northern France, and they fell to pieces quickly. Each day a number of men had to remain in billets until new boots could be obtained from Ordnance Stores. A number of officers and men, however, refused to be worried by such insignificant details as boots, for were they not going home for the first time since September 1914? During the month batches of these veterans departed for fourteen days amid the rousing cheers of their comrades.
At Peronne, where D.H.Q. was opened on April 14, every building was badly damaged except the Town Hall, which was at once placed out of bounds because of this immunity, as any place that appeared to invite occupation was regarded with suspicion, owing to the typical Boche habit of leaving delayed-action mines and other “booby-traps.” Peronne Town Hall did not, however, go sky-high, as was daily expected. In the village of Peiziere some officers of the 126th Brigade took up their quarters in a house that had been left in good condition. Fortunately one of them took the precaution to explore and found a quantity of high explosive hidden under the beams. They cleared out. Next day a shell dropped on the building and it vanished. An R.A.M.C. orderly in the vicinity was lifted several feet in the air by the force of the explosion. “Eh, that wur a near do!” he said, as he picked himself up carefully and resumed his journey.
The Division now formed part of the 3rd Corps of the Fourth Army. On the 8th of April the 125th Brigade took over a portion of the line from the 48th Division at Epéhy, in front of Le Catelet, and a few days later the 126th Brigade also went into the line, in order that as many battalions as possible might have a short experience of front-line conditions before the Division as a whole assumed responsibility for a sector. The front here had become practically stationary, and as neither side had a continuous trench system the connecting of posts proceeded nightly, and patrolling and digging were the chief diversions. The 7th Lancashire Fusiliers was the first battalion to go into the line, which they advanced, after a sharp skirmish, to a copse about half a mile ahead. They were relieved on April 12-13 by the 6th L.F., and during the relief Malassise Farm, in which were a number of men of both battalions, was heavily shelled. The building was destroyed, and the fall of the roof buried about fifty of these men in the cellar. Though the shelling continued with great violence, admirable courage was shown in extricating the buried men, and for this the Military Medal was awarded to a private of each battalion. The Division’s first trench raid on the Western Front was made by the 4th East Lancashires at Epéhy. On April 28 the 126th Brigade advanced their line successfully, but the 4th and 5th East Lancashires suffered rather heavily.
Throughout April the wintry weather continued, but the unfailing spirit of the British soldier under depressing conditions is shown in the following anecdote related by an officer of the 4th East Lancashires: “The rain was pouring into my dugout, and the water slowly rising, so to avoid a fit of the blues I went along the line to see how the men were faring. A sentry was standing in mud half up to his knees, his hands numbed and wet, and a stream of water ran from his tin hat. By way of comparing notes I asked this pitiable spectacle what he really felt like. ‘Like a flower in May, sir,’ was the cheerful reply, and I was cured of the blues.”
On May 3 the Division took over from the 48th Division a sector in the neighbourhood of Ronnsoy, south-east of Epéhy. As Brig.-General Ormsby was engaged in marking out the new front line of his Brigade near Catelet Copse, the enemy suddenly opened a bombardment, and he was struck in the head by a piece of shell and killed. General Ormsby had been in command of the Brigade for more than twelve months, and during that period he had become very popular with his men and had gained their respect and admiration. Lieut.-Colonel H. C. Darlington, 5th Manchesters, once more assumed temporary command until the arrival of Brig.-General the Hon. A. M. Henley, who remained in command of the 127th Brigade until the end of the war.
Two brigades were in the front line and one in reserve, with a system of four-day reliefs. The long winter was over at last; summer had arrived without any introduction by spring, and the weather was now gloriously hot. There was a good deal of local fighting, especially around Guillemont Farm, an enemy post which more than one division had found by no means difficult to capture, but exceedingly difficult to hold. Several night attacks were made by companies and platoons, in one of which, on the night of May 6-7, the 9th Manchesters established forward posts in the face of heavy machine-gun fire, and Private A. Holden was awarded the Bar to the M.M. for volunteering to bring in the wounded, and afterwards going out into the open to make sure that none had been missed. He found a wounded officer and helped to carry him 400 yards on a heavily shelled road, and went out again to assist another injured man to safety. He succeeded in this, but was himself wounded. The enemy artillery was generally active, and on one occasion some men of the 126th Brigade were quite grateful to the German gunners. A heavy shell, which fell among some ruined cottages, threw up a number of gold and silver coins, dated a hundred years ago and evidently a long-buried hoard.
Epéhy and Ytres
On May 23 D.H.Q. moved to Ytres, about eight miles north-west of Epéhy, the Division relieving the 20th Division on a newly-captured sector running from the Canal du Nord, south-west of Havrincourt, to a point south of Villers Plouich, through Trescault and Beaucamp; and here the Division remained until July 8. This was a fairly quiet sector, and during the first few weeks there was no event of any importance to vary the daily round of digging, wiring, and strengthening the trench system and the patrolling of No Man’s Land. Havrincourt Wood in the spring of 1917 remained a very beautiful spot amid the chaos of war. Though the “hate” of the Boche was less demonstrative than in many sectors his trench-mortars and machine-guns were generally busy at night, and considerable annoyance was caused on the right of the line by a trench-mortar which—so it was conjectured—was brought up every night on a light railway, and taken back after a few shots had been fired. At sunrise the clamour of the guns ceased and the birds at once “took over,” the cuckoo being particularly active. Nightingales were common here and in the copses in the line, and as they seemed to regard machine-guns as rival vocalists, they would sing in competition. The bell-like whistle of the black and yellow golden oriole was often heard, and in the centre of the wood the war at times seemed far enough away. The A.S.C. turned their hands to hay-making, and helped to cut and harvest some acres of excellent clover, rye, and lucerne. The 3rd Field Ambulance were more envied by their fellows, as they harvested—for their own consumption—the crop of a very prolific strawberry bed in the garden of the ruined villa which they inhabited at Ruyalcourt.
A quartermaster of the 127th Brigade had chosen the ruins of a farm at a cross-roads near Havrincourt Wood for his dump. He was warned by the Town Major that this spot had probably been mined by the enemy, and particularly warned not to make use of the cellar, which was a likely place for a “booby-trap.” However, nothing happened, and of course his men not only went into the cellar but took planks and bricks therefrom to improve their quarters in the rooms above. One evening the Q.M. returned from the line to find his staff in a state of nervous collapse. As soon as he had prevailed upon them to sit up and take a little nourishment they related this painful story: The former owner, armed with documents and accompanied by gendarmes and British Military Police, had visited the old home, descended into the cellar, and dug up jars containing jewellery, coins, and banknotes, within a few inches of the spot from which the storemen had taken the planks. The butcher had even held a candle to assist the search, and his reflections on “what might have been,” as the jars of buried treasure were brought to light, completely unnerved him, especially when the owner handed him a couple of francs with thanks for the trouble he had so kindly taken. For some time after this these storemen displayed a rabbit-like tendency to burrow in any old corner, but luck was not with them.